Chlorogenic acids, which have been reported to have excellent antihypertensive effect, are desired to be applied to a wide variety of uses including supplements and food and drink (Patent Document 1).
As a material containing a large amount of chlorogenic acids, green coffee beans are mentioned; however, green coffee beans contain caffeine, which causes harmful effects such as insomnia and hypersensitivity if excessively taken. Because of this, a method for selectively removing caffeine from a chlorogenic acids-containing composition which contains caffeine, has been investigated.
In a method for extracting chlorogenic acids from green coffee beans, it is known to remove caffeine by bringing an extract of green coffee beans with an aqueous solvent into contact with strongly acidic cation exchange resin (Patent Document 2).
Furthermore, as a method for obtaining a chlorogenic acids composition containing chlorogenic acids at high concentrations and a reduced amount of caffeine, a method of adsorbing and separating chlorogenic acids by bringing a coffee-bean extract into contact with a hydrophobic adsorbent such as a styrene-divinylbenzene-based synthetic adsorbent is known (Patent Documents 3, 4).